


the city is drowning

by SyntheticRevenge



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Freeform, i honestly have no idea what to tag this as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 03:56:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7602451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyntheticRevenge/pseuds/SyntheticRevenge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A form experiment where each segment is about a level of the game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the city is drowning

1  
the stone is grimy and cold and the cells have leaks and the empress is dead. tongues taste prayers to the black-eyed god as the sewers drip onto moldy bread. they carve the days into the walls. they will never see the sun again.

2  
the pub is well lit, colorful. a spot of hope and light on the foggy, body-littered riverbank. the bloody past has sunk into the basement, forgotten. 

3  
dreams are dark and empty. there is nothing, nothing but memories of places torn to floating pieces and a young man with black eyes and ringed fingers. lampposts and whales hover in the emptiness. one day this place will consume all of the light in the sky

4  
granny rags feeds the birds human hearts, neatly cut into bite sized pieces. the nearly-dead moan in dark alleys, staggering in clouds of flies. the dead are given to the river. the heretics write on the walls and steal purple cloth for shrines and carve into bones. broken glass litters the streets. the fog and smoke hang low on the city, so dreary, dearie.

5  
the girls dance with each other when the men are gone and the madame isn’t watching. sometimes they even laugh. some sit on the ramp leading into the river with stale bread, waiting for the rats to come, wanting them to bite. the men already killed them so they’re going to kill the men. you cannot kill the rat plague. it’s a statement of pride. what is dead may never die.

 

6  
the bridge at sunset is a sight travelers are told to see. many stand in the streets, look up at it, marvel at how many whales it must take to power the bridge every day. the city lights are a wonder from the bridge. the river is a wonder, rising, rising, washing buildings and bodies into the void. children cut their feet on carved whalebones washed up in the mud. many strange things were drowned and forgotten, left in the water to rot.

7  
the outsider walks among us is scrawled on nearly every wall in the city. it’s a lie. he walks above, and only when the occasion calls for it. only on a night like tonight, the darkened and dirty streets, the dying and dead squatting in abandoned and condemned buildings, all surrounding a center of bright lights and finery, red and white and black silk, duels and debauchery and masked tittering. it’s all a game to the black-eyed boy. something to be amused by. a party. 

8  
in the light of day the tower was beautiful. gleaming white stone, ivy and gently rushing water. at night it’s a heavily guarded monstrosity rising out of the black river, militaristic and terrifying. water carries sound the sound of gunfire and metal against metal can be heard from far away.

9  
they hide this. this is the part of the city everyone knows about but doesn’t acknowledge, the necessary sacrifice, the limb they amputated. the water is brackish and swampy and disgustingly cold and it rises to first-story windows. the only people who live in the flooded district are the dying and daud’s assassins. the plague is the only force paid any respect. no one writes anything about the outsider. he would never bother with a place like this.

10  
and the trail of bodies leads here, back to the tower, back to a balcony in the rain. back to a choice.


End file.
